Chapter 21: The Myth of Privacy


William Sterling

The Myth of a "Right" to Privacy

We think of privacy as a pretty straightforward concept. It is easily summarized, but it quickly becomes more complicated as we begin to dig deeper into examples. One of the most widely accepted definitions of privacy comes from Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, who described the right to privacy simply as the "right to be let alone." This simple and eloquent description does a great job summarizing what many would argue is their indisputable right as members of a free society. Yet as the debate surrounding privacy shows, this right to privacy is much harder to agree on in the real world. The right to privacy is hard to agree on because privacy is not a right. Everyone values their privacy, but valuing something is very different from saying it is a basic right. The difference between a value and a right is more than just semantics. A right stays with us; no matter what we do, no one can take a right away from us, and we can't do anything to lose our rights. Privacy is different. It's very easy to give up your privacy. In almost every case where we claim a violation of our rights, a deeper look will reveal that we're just doing a poor job protecting something that is valuable to us.

Is it wrong to spy on someone in their own home? What if you do so from a public street? That would imply they have a right to not be seen, even if they're in plain sight from a public street. If someone uses a high-powered telescope to look into someone else's bedroom, most of us would call that a violation of their privacy. If someone is simply walking down the street and happens to see into another person's home from the sidewalk, most of us would not find any fault there. That would suggest the difference between right and wrong is somewhere between glancing in a window from the street and staring into a window using a telescope. Could the difference that determines whether someone's privacy is violated be in the telescope? Maybe it's in how long someone looks in your window or in the intent of the person looking. The argument might seem clearer if we bring a camera into the picture. Surely we have the right not to have pictures taken of us in our own home. Slight changes can turn a situation from publicly acceptable to an outright violation of privacy.

Satellites have taken detailed pictures of virtually every square inch on the planet, and many of these pictures are now available through inexpensive or freely available services. A cool new Web site at www.earthviewer.com allows you to view satellite pictures of every major city, down to individual homes and buildings. Chances are, if you live in the continental U.S., I can type in your street address and zoom down to see if you have a pool in your backyard. This may seem like a far cry from the example of someone looking into your bedroom window, but the examples actually aren't so different.

The current satellite photos don't have enough resolution to see individual people, but that will change over time. When better pictures are available, someone might see a picture of you in your own backyard. Does that violate your privacy? I wouldn't really mind if someone took a picture of me in my backyard. I personally don't think it would be very interesting, but I might feel differently if I weren't wearing any clothes. I might not like someone having that picture, but where am I drawing the line?

Maybe the satellite companies should be forced to scan through the photos and erase any indecent pictures of people. Someone else may feel strongly about any picture of them in their backyard, even if they're clothed, so maybe the satellite companies should erase all pictures of people. You could even make an argument that you have the right not to have your backyard photographed at all, but would that mean you have some right to every picture taken of your backyard from space? Should the satellite company be forced to get every person's permission before releasing pictures of homes and backyards? Obviously, that would make the service impractical to offer, and it would cease to exist.

In every case, the argument over privacy becomes an argument in degree rather than principle. This is what makes the right to privacy a myth. Taking low-resolution pictures from above in space might be okay, but taking high-resolution pictures into your window from the street is considered a violation of our privacy. Two fundamentally similar practices produce dramatically different responses. Without fundamental definitions of right and wrong when it comes to privacy, we are left in an ambiguous world with a piecemeal set of rules and regulations being patched together as technology enables new practices and creates new public concerns. We can't classify privacy as a fundamental right when it is impossible to create universal definitions of right and wrong when dealing with privacy.

I'm not suggesting privacy is an invalid desire, or even that we shouldn't try to protect our privacy. If we truly desire to keep something private, then we shouldn't give it out to anyone we don't trust. Trust can come in many forms. We give private information to people we trust implicitly without any guarantee they will live up to that trust. If we don't trust someone implicitly, then we can't assume they will keep our information private unless they specifically agree to do so. If I give my phone number to you, and you give it out to a friend or even put it on a Web site, I can blame only myself. Of course, this doesn't mean individuals or companies can say one thing and do another. If someone tells me they will not give out my information, and then they break that agreement by giving out that information, I have a legitimate claim that they violated a contract with me. While we may not have a right to the assumption of privacy, we do have the right to take someone to court if they break an agreement to keep something private. So we can defend our privacy by not giving out anything we value as private. If we need to give out information and want it treated as private in some way, we must either trust the other party implicitly or agree with them on the specific limitations of what they can do with that information. If they violate that agreement, we can take them to court.




The CTO Handbook. The Indispensable Technology Leadership Resource for Chief Technology Officers
The CTO Handbook/Job Manual: A Wealth of Reference Material and Thought Leadership on What Every Manager Needs to Know to Lead Their Technology Team
ISBN: 1587623676
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 213

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